12-year-old Sings An Anthem Of Survival Against Cancer

August 16, 1999|By Andy Davis, Tribune Staff Writer.

No matter the score of Monday's White Sox-Angels game, thousands of people will be witness to an incredible comeback. A 12-year-old girl, just 4 feet 2 inches tall but with a voice big enough to fill Comiskey Park, is scheduled to sing the National Anthem, keeping a date she missed four years ago.

She will try not to look at the stands, but noticeably absent will be James Edwards Jr., the music teacher who discovered her talent and helped it bloom, and later helped her win a battle with cancer.

FOR THE RECORD - Additional material published Aug. 25, 1999:Corrections and clarifications.An Aug. 16 story mistakenly identified where 12-year-old Stephanie Rodriguez took music lessons. She takes private piano lessons and is a voice student at the MERITS tuition-free conservatory, a non-profit organization. The Tribune regrets the error.

Although Edwards lost his own battle with leukemia three years ago, his lessons will be with her.

"He told me, as long as you don't look at the people, it's OK," said Stephanie Rodriguez, who starts 7th grade this month at Helge Haugan Elementary School in Albany Park. "You have to imagine that you're singing to little animals, or imagine that you're in a place you're used to singing in. I close my eyes and I pretend that I'm in my sleep and I'm imagining it. I pretend like I'm in a soft place--like I'm on my pillow, dreaming.

"That's what Mr. Edwards taught me. He taught me to be in my place."

A few weeks ago, Lance Armstrong's victory in the Tour de France brought the world's attention to the struggles and triumph of a cancer survivor. While Stephanie's mantle full of voice trophies at her family's apartment in an Albany Park three-flat might seem modest by comparison, her story is just as compelling. Her performance will be watched by an expected 1,000 cancer survivors from area hospitals as part of an annual White Sox event.

Like many of those spectators, Stephanie has learned a lot about illness, death, victory and disappointment.

"She's a great role model," said her doctor, Stewart Goldman of Children's Memorial Hospital. "Here's a kid who went through chemotherapy and radiation, and she's singing the National Anthem in Comiskey Park. I really believe in my heart she's something to be proud of.

"She shows that these kids do survive and make progress. It's sad when they don't make it, but it's great when they do make it, because they go through hell."

As a toddler, Stephanie always had a tune in her head--she suspects because her mother sang to her as a baby. On her own she would sing songs she heard on "Sesame Street" or the radio, often by Whitney Houston, Gloria Estefan or Stevie Wonder. She sometimes got into trouble for singing in class.

But it took Edwards, the music director at Haugan Elementary, just down Hamlin Avenue from Stephanie's home, to recognize her gift. He was a popular and funny teacher, but he would not hesitate to use his booming baritone to silence a room full of giggling kids, or ask a disruptive one to leave. Music was serious stuff, and students knew his trademark glare meant it was time to pay attention.

Stephanie was in his kindergarten class, singing "Smile and Say Hello," when Edwards asked her to stay after class. She thought she was in trouble. Instead, he gave her a note to take home asking if she would join Haugan's 4th- to 8th-grade choir.

At 6, at the start of 1st grade, she was the youngest ever to join the choir, and a few weeks later, she became the youngest ever to join the celebrated Chicago Public Schools All-City Elementary Youth Chorus, where Edwards had been a co-conductor since its inception 19 years ago. The group of about 120 kids from public schools had previously only admitted 4th through 8th graders, but it made an exception for Stephanie.

"We all heard her and we were like, `Wow,' " said James Lopez, who plays piano and assists in vocal instruction for the chorus. "She had no qualms whatsoever about standing in front of everybody and singing and giving it her heart."

Raw talent was evident, but it needed fine-tuning. Edwards took up the task himself. The Rodriguezes recall that he would meet with Stephanie before school, after school and at her home.

"I'm not good at taking criticism, but I would take it from him because he'd say it in a nice way," Stephanie said. "He taught me if somebody says something, it's for a reason."

A school talent show gave her a first taste of solo applause, and that summer, Edwards decided to take her show on the road. She sang at a Mexican street festival, and, in the performance she remembers most fondly, at a music festival at the Rosemont Horizon.

She had her own dressing room, with her name and a star on the door, and a plate of fruit inside. She and Edwards had picked out the song, "Anything for You," by Estefan, because he thought her voice was a perfect fit. She wore the white dress and pearls she was baptized in.

A duo with a song popular on the radio at the time performed first, and she thought, "I'm not going to get that kind of applause," said her mother, Wanda Rodriguez.

"But she went out there and she sang beautifully," Rodriguez said. "You had to see this little girl sing--it was like she felt this woman's pain.